LiveAgent vs. ManyChat vs. Helply: Pricing and Features Compared 

Key Takeaways

• LiveAgent costs $15 to $69 per agent each month and bundles phone, email, and chat, but reviewers flag a dated interface and a buggy, barely-functional mobile app.
• ManyChat is built for social DM marketing, not support. The free plan covers just 25 active contacts, and paid plans bill by contact, so cost climbs as your audience grows.
• Helply pairs a free, unlimited-seat support platform with AI that supercharges agents: it drafts replies, answers questions across your data, and surfaces churn and upsell signals, billed only on outcomes.
• Three categories, not three rivals. LiveAgent is a helpdesk, ManyChat is a marketing automation tool, and Helply is a B2B support platform.
• For B2B software teams, Helply is the only option that reads full account context on every ticket and surfaces churn, upsell, and competitor signals.

LiveAgent vs. ManyChat vs. Helply: Comparison Table

Three Tools, Three Different Jobs

Comparing these three is really a category question, so answer that first. Each tool was built for a different job, and the wrong category will cost you no matter how good the tool is.

• LiveAgent replaces your inbox. It is a helpdesk for handling email, chat, and phone in one queue.
• ManyChat grows and converts an audience. It automates social DMs to capture leads and drive sales.
• Helply runs and monetizes B2B support. It resolves tickets, assists agents, and turns conversations into revenue signals.

LiveAgent: Best for a Budget All-in-One Helpdesk

LiveAgent is a traditional helpdesk that pulls email, live chat, and phone into one dashboard.

Its standout trait is a built-in call center, so you can run phone support without buying separate software. It is cheap, and it packs a long feature list into one screen.

Key features

• Universal inbox. Email, live chat, phone calls, and social messages from Facebook, Instagram, and Viber land in one queue, so agents stop switching tabs to reply.
• Built-in call center. A full VoIP phone system with IVR menus and call recording is included, which is rare at this price point.
• Ticketing with the basics covered. Every message becomes a ticket, with agent collision detection, SLAs, and tags to keep work organized.
• Basic AI. An AI Answer Assistant rephrases replies and a simple chatbot collects details, but it does not resolve tickets on its own.

Pricing

LiveAgent has a limited free plan plus four paid tiers, billed per agent per month. On annual billing, that is Small at $15, Medium at $29, Large at $49, and Enterprise at $69.

Monthly billing costs up to 23% more, and every plan includes a 30-day trial.

Pros

• Affordable for a tool that includes phone, email, and chat in one place.
• One login replaces several separate tools, which keeps both cost and admin down.
• Solid agent reporting that tracks response times and workload.

Cons

• The interface feels dated, and reviewers say settings and advanced setup are clunky.
• The mobile app is buggy and barely functional, missing features and feeling abandoned by its developers.
• The AI assists humans but does not deflect a large share of tickets on its own.
• Doing phone, chat, and ticketing at once means no single part feels polished.

Best for. Small teams on a tight budget that need a phone line and an inbox in one tool and do not mind a dated interface.

ManyChat: Best for Instagram and Meta DM Marketing

If you searched for the best ManyChat alternative for customer support, here is the honest answer up front: ManyChat is excellent at marketing and weak at support.

It automates direct messages on Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and TikTok, and it is an official Meta and TikTok partner. It is made to grow and convert an audience, not to run a ticket queue.

Key features

• Visual flow builder. A drag-and-drop builder creates branching message flows, which is great for sales funnels and rigid for open support questions.
• Comment-to-DM. ManyChat auto-messages anyone who comments on a post, a feature creators use to grow lists fast.
• Broadcasts. You can send mass messages to a whole contact list, similar to an email blast delivered over chat.
• ManyChat AI. AI can answer FAQ-style DMs, but it is tuned for marketing replies, not complex support cases.

Pricing

ManyChat charges by active contacts, meaning anyone you message in a billing month. The free plan covers only 25 active contacts.

Paid plans run $14 a month for Essential, $29 for Pro, $69 for Business, and $139 for Advanced.

Each tier has a contact cap, with per-contact overage fees above it. For marketing, that scales with reach.

For support, it scales with every customer who writes in, which turns higher support volume into a bigger bill. Check the live ManyChat pricing before you commit.

Can ManyChat handle customer support tickets?

Not really. ManyChat has no true ticketing system, no shared customer record, and its flow bots break when a question lands off-script. It works for simple, FAQ-style replies inside Instagram and Messenger.

It does not work as a support queue where you assign, prioritize, and track tickets through to resolution.

Pros

• The strongest tool on the market for Instagram and Facebook DM marketing.
• The flow builder is fast and easy for building quizzes and funnels.
• Comment-to-DM drives real subscriber and lead growth.

Cons

• Per-contact pricing punishes growth, and users report bills climbing past $100 to $200 a month.
• Flow bots fail on anything they were not scripted to handle.
• No ticketing and no shared customer context, so support work piles up with no structure.
• Because ManyChat runs on Meta's platforms, outages on Meta's side can stop your automations.

Best for. Creators, e-commerce sellers, and marketers running Instagram and Meta DM campaigns. If support is your real bottleneck, weigh the best ManyChat alternatives for customer support instead.

Helply: Best for B2B Customer Support

Helply is a B2B support platform built for software companies. The support platform itself is free forever with unlimited seats, and you pay only when AI delivers an outcome.

That model is the opposite of paying per agent or per contact, and it is the main reason Helply fits a growing B2B team.

Unlike a marketing bot, Helply is built around the support ticket. Unlike a dated helpdesk, it leads with AI that makes agents faster.

Its AI assistant drafts every reply with sources and full account context, so a human stays in the loop and answers in seconds. You can also ask Helply anything across your support data in plain language.

It also fits your current stack. Helply runs on its own, or as an AI layer on top of your existing Zendesk or Freshdesk through its integrations. Channels are first-class too, including Slack Connect, Microsoft Teams, Discord, email, in-app chat, SMS, and WhatsApp.

Key features

• AI assistant for agents. Every reply is drafted with sources and account context, so agents answer faster without losing their own voice.
• Support Intelligence. Ask questions across tickets, CRM, billing, and product data in natural language and get an answer in seconds.
• Revenue signals. Each ticket is scanned for churn risk, upsell intent, and competitor mentions, then routed to the right owner automatically.
• Autonomous resolution. High-confidence tickets are resolved end to end across chat and email, while everything else reaches a human with a drafted reply.

Pricing

The Fully Featured Support Platform is free forever, with unlimited seats and no credit card. AI-First Support adds the AI capabilities with outcome-based pricing, so you pay per result, not per seat.

Drafts are $0.25 and resolutions $0.50, while revenue signals like churn, upsell, and competitor flags are $2.99 each, with spending caps included.

Enterprise adds SSO, a custom DPA, an uptime SLA, and white-glove migration.

Pros

• The platform is free with unlimited seats, so there is no per-seat or per-contact tax on the team.
• Cost tracks value, since you pay when AI resolves, drafts, or surfaces revenue, not for logins.
• Every ticket arrives with full account context, which matters when customers are technical and accounts are known.
• It plugs into the helpdesk you already run, so nothing has to be ripped out to add AI.

Cons

• Helply is built for technical B2B companies that sell software, not for B2C, e-commerce, or agencies.
• Outcome pricing takes a few minutes to model if you are used to a flat per-seat invoice.

Best for. B2B software teams, with a sweet spot around $1M to $50M in ARR, that want modern AI support and want support to surface revenue.

The Real Cost: Per-Contact vs. Per-Agent vs. Free Plus Outcomes

This is where the three tools separate. Each uses a different pricing model, and the model matters more than the sticker price as you grow.

LiveAgent charges per agent. A 10-agent team on the Large plan pays about $490 a month, every month, whether the tool resolves anything or not. ManyChat charges per active contact, so a busy month that brings 20,000 contacts can push an account well past $100 a month. In a support setting, every customer who messages adds to that count.

That gap is the case for outcome pricing. It matches the most common complaint about both LiveAgent and ManyChat: a bill that climbs no matter what you get back.

It is the same argument behind the end of per-seat pricing. To see the math on your own volume, run the numbers in the Helply ROI calculator.

Get Started With Helply!

In the LiveAgent vs. ManyChat vs. Helply decision, LiveAgent is the budget pick for an all-in-one inbox, and ManyChat is the right call for Instagram and Meta marketing.

For a B2B support team, Helply is the better fit, because the support platform is free forever and you pay only when AI delivers an outcome. B2B support should not be priced per seat or per contact.